2013 Dodge Challenger SRT8 — docile is not the word

After weeks of testing docile little PC cars, mewling hybrids, cautious fuel-sippers that creep fearfully by gas stations, it’s nice to have a rip-roaring politically outrageous monster that does zero to sixty in less than five seconds and does it loud. Stomp that pedal and hold on to that fat leather-covered wheel. You are gone, baby, gone. Four hundred and seventy horsepower (take that, you simpering Civic!); top speed, 182 miles an hour (like those numbers, Prius Princess?).

In this age of fear and trembling, dithering and rationalizing, the Dodge Challenger SRT8 is a bold certainty. It is Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry.” It is Steve McQueen in “Bullitt” – think if he’d had this Challenger instead of the dark green Mustang. Those movies are classics. And so is this Challenger – an homage to the pony- and muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s, but updated with all the mod cons we expect.

The SRT8, with its growling exhaust and its meaty 20-inch tires, is not meant for most of us. But I will tell you that for six days this car was definitely meant for me, even if it seemed like the terrifying bull in the neighborhood china shop. Like a junkyard dog in a bad mood, the Challenger SRT8 is the kind of car you want to chain to the house for fear it will start biting people. It was definitely the new bully on the block.

Because it’s so powerful, it’s the kind of car where you don’t need to shift sequentially through the six-speed gearbox. You can go from first to third or even fourth, (like, say, a Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago; and I mention that only because I once spent a day being driven around Northern California in just such a car by Valentino Balboni, Lamborghini’s chief test driver, but that’s another story, which you could actually see here). Anyway, back to the Challenger, which, at $48,705, including the $1,000 gas guzzler tax, is more than $270,000 cheaper than that 2006 Lamborghini (when it was new) . One of the many lessons I learned from Sr. Balboni on that 300-mile drive was that in a monster-engined car you don’t have to shift up and down the gears one-two-three-four-five-six. The engine has so much torque you can easily go from first to third or fourth and then sixth. In fact, most fast cars these days have done away with clutch pedals and now use what are essentially automated transmissions, frequently with paddle shifters on or near the steering wheel. But in the Challenger SRT8, it was the clutch pedal that made me feel as if I really were back in the pony car days, dragging for pink slips on a late-night freeway. (N.B. You can also get a five-speed automatic in the new Challengers and it’s probably a saner fit for many drivers. Ed. note: you mean the wimps?)

Win on Sunday, sell on Monday

Pony cars in the 1960s were typified by Ford’s Mustang (and its near twin, the Mercury Cougar), Dodge’s Challenger and the General Motors duo of Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. They were immensely popular cars and it only got better when they jumped onto the race track in the Trans-Am series. The industry loved that sales mantra of “win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” Then, like most good things, some of the cars went away, others lost their spirit and became somewhat ordinary. But in 2005, Ford revived the idea, with a Mustang that took the best of the 1960s body style – that long hood and short rear deck – and made it into a modern car that still looks as if Steve McQueen might jump right in and scream up those San Francisco hills. (Five years ago, Ford even introduced a “Mustang Bullitt,” an homage to the movie car.) Chrysler entered this retro game with the Dodge Challenger in 2008 and Chevy brought back the Camaro in 2010.

So what we have in this 2013 Challenger, with the fire-breathing 6.4-liter HemiV8, is a car that will make you feel as if you’re in one of those Sixties pony cars, but it’s now a full-grown horse, rather than a pony. (In the malleable semantics of putting labels on autos, sometimes they’re called pony cars, sometimes muscle cars.) But they’ve grown up — the Challenger weighs 1,000 pounds more than the 1970 version and is about six inches longer. They probably needed the extra weight to accommodate all the 21st century gizmos and gadgets.

More of a grand touring car than a sprinter

Our test car had the requisite navigation, super stereo (down to woofers in the trunk floor), power everything and a feeling that the Challenger really was more of a heavy grand touring car than a sprightly sprinter. On the road, the new Challenger definitely wants to run – Dodge has wisely kept the mufflers at a noisy enough level to let you know what you’re driving, but not so loud as to make the 400-mile trip annoying. The car is comfortable for the long haul, but be careful when you’re negotiating a crowded shopping center parking lot; the rearward sight lines are pretty much bulked up with the high rear deck combined with the thick C-pillars. But clear, elegant rear-facing sight lines are not what you’d buy this car for. Driving backwards is not in the Challenger’s DNA.

Getting back to the real world…. the SRT8 392 (for cubic inch displacement) gets 14/23 mpg city/highway. For almost half the $48,000 price of this tire-scorcher, you could get a box-stock Challenger with a 305-horse V6 and a five-speed automatic transmission. It would look about the same as the SRT8 and would get far better fuel mileage.

You could do that but, to borrow a phrase from Richard Nixon, that would be wrong. If you’re going to have a car like this, it’s gotta shout out loud. No whispering for this Bad Boy.